What is it about the color blue that appeals to people around the world? Why is yellow and green disliked so much? According to Sally Augustin, Ph.D., author and environmental design psychologist, sensory experiences affect the way people think about spaces. This episode highlights the ways she integrated science-based insights into the design of work and living spaces.

Sally and Greg discuss insights to help listeners understand what people want from their homes and workplaces. She touched on how human nature, evolution, and survival shape our perception of our world. Dr. Augustin discusses her take on office design trends such as open office plans and activity-based office layouts. She discussed how smells, textures, and other factors in your home affect your mood and productivity.

In this podcast, we are enlightened about biophilia and how it integrates into our homes and offices. Discover why there are fewer studies on physical design based on experiments. Tune in until the end of this episode for practical advice and real-world examples that will help make your home a happier place to be.

Episode Quotes:

Can you talk about environmental design as a field and discipline?

“I think that the first time somebody put a space to live together, where they wanted to feel comfortable, they started to think about the kinds of topics that are relevant to environmental psychology. The first time somebody set up a little stand beside a path somewhere to sell something, they were interested in how the space they put together will influence sales, all that kind of thing. So, I think, people have actually been thinking about how the physical environment influences, how humans think and behave. But as a field, environmental psych started to get going in the fifties. It was really whirring along by the sixties. And in the fifties and sixties, we were called architecture. Psychologists, which was actually a pretty good name for what we did, thinking about how aspects of the physical environment influence what goes on in people's heads. And then, in the seventies or so, people realize that environmental psychology was being applied, not just to design places, but also to design objects. So then, the people in the architectural psych world decided, they needed a new name. So, they called themselves environmental psychologists, which has led to a lot of confusion in future years because, classic environmental psychologists, such as me, we are into conserving the physical environment.”

What is it that people want from their living space?

“Well, I think humans today like to believe we are really very different from our ancestors, but you know, really we're not so much. I hate to break it to anybody out there who was thinking, they made some progress. But our sensory systems are much the same today as they were, when we were just starting to develop tools. So, you think about like a chipmunk, for example, and think about what it wants from a space. That's really not so different from what a modern human is. Chipmunks are relatively social animals linked to people. A chipmunk wants to be able to interact with others of its kind when it chooses to do so. But it's very concerned about its safety because a chipmunk really doesn't have much going for it safety-wise, besides staying alert and moving. And when we were a young species, that's how we survived as well. So, that's why we're really interested in things like prospect and refuge. You don't have to think about something approaching you from the rear. You have a secure view of the world around you, and you can feel really comfortable at a fundamental level. Our sensory systems from many, many generations ago actually are why we're so concerned about today in the environments that surround ourselves. Something that, you know, we had to do all the time when we were a young species was we had to continually look around the world in which we found ourselves to make sure that nothing who thought we were tasty was approaching.”

How do visual clutter and complexity affects us psychologically?

“When your environment is visually cluttered, all that is around, it takes a lot more effort. It's a lot harder. It makes you feel stressed, so it's like just cognitive load, visual load. Visual load matters. Because it leads to cognitive load, as you're talking about, you have to curate the environment in which you find yourself. Particularly, in this time when we're not really going anywhere besides, you know, from one space in our house to another space in our house. So, you really have to think about what's surrounding you. Just as you don't want an environment that takes a lot of effort to scan, that really increases your cognitive load. You also don't want a space that's too stark. That really freaks us out too. That isn't where our sensory systems developed. They didn't come into being in a white box, with one chair in it, etcetera. So, we really are, best from a psychological perspective, in a space that has moderate visual complexity.”

Why we as humans need to isolate from an open space

"We're also like animals. We need time out of the view of the others of our type every so often - visually, acoustically out of range - to make sense of what's going on in our lives and things like that. We have a fundamental need for privacy. It's a little different from being distraction-free in these really open spaces; there's no place for people to go. Sometimes you find people in their cars at lunch, pretending to be asleep in their car in the parking lot."

Show Links

Guest Profile

Her Work

Designology: Integrating Environment, Sensory Experiences, and Lifestyle feat. Sally Augustin

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc